Rear Bumper LED Swap

I got a set of the Rear Bumper LED lights that go in the rear bumper to replace the reflectors. I saw them pop up on Amazon and they were sold out of the smoked version, so I picked up a set on Ebay for $10 cheaper (Ordered Fri, Delivered Mon). They were easy to put in, HOWEVER, I learned a leason. Do NOT tie into the trailer harness. I thought "oh, I can cheat and not have to pull the tail liights and I can just tie direct here. DO NOT DO THIS. The truck sees current on the trailer circuit and automatticly thinks you have a trailer hooked up and disables blind spot monitoring, reverse sensors, etc...

When I made my first tie in, I used marine grade connectors and heat shrink tubbing. Marine Grade has a heat activated epoxy in it and when you heat to shrink the connectors down/tubbing, it squezzes out the expoxy to seal completely around the wire making it water tight and it glues the wires together giving you a stronger bond to help prevent pulling it apart. So I had to cut all that out, re-do the trailer harness all nice and neat and then re-run the wires up and pin it out again.

I attached a simple video of what it looks like from the rear. I put a similiar set on my C7 about a year ago (better quality tho!), and it only had one mode. These have Brake for brighter, running lights (dimmer), Turn Signals. Since the Explorer uses the brake light for the turn signal and not an amber bulb (Euro style), the wires for turn and brake go together on the same wire.

That looks pretty neat. Very well made video too.

For those of us that need YouTube to know how to use a screwdriver, can you explain the actual install and wiring processes?

I would have thought maybe buried in the bumper there might be a harness since the Aviators have the lights. At some point, Ford must have thought about doing lights because if you pull the reflectors, it looks like it has a dummy port on the back for a lighting harness.

I think European model Explorers have an actual light there.

Hello all! Just joined the forum and was reading this topic. I picked up a set of these from Amazon but when I flip on the turn signal, the new LED light wont flash while having the standard amber bulb still in the socket. When I remove the standard amber bulb, the LED then flashes. Any thoughts? How about some wiring help please please

Welcome to the forum. I'm not much help on electrical issues. I'm sure somebody with more knowledge than me will come up wit a solution to your problem. There are many ST experts on this forum.